


To Nile, With Love

by Anonymous



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Epistolary, F/F, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mortal Andy | Andromache of Scythia, POV Nile Freeman, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Perhaps most tragic of all is the absence of Andy Burgess outside of Scranton history. We know that she was brave and determined based on her actions during the Scranton Flood. We know that she loved and was loved in return, that her final thoughts on the day of her death were about Nile. But who she was outside of that has been lost to the pages of history. Though many people have shown up over the years claiming to be her family, there has been no actual proven familial link to this day. In many ways, Andy Burgess exists because of Nile's letters, her words doing more to immortalize the Hero of Scranton's human existence than any biographical text to date...And perhaps, at the end of the day, this was the greatest demonstration of Nile's love for Andy Burgess: to keep her alive long after she was gone."- Smith, A. (2079). The missing link: A study of the absence of women in early twenty-first century queer studies.Queer Studies, 2(22).
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	To Nile, With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alamorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/gifts).



> Just wanted to address the "Implied/Referenced Character Death" tag. This fic is in the future and contains movie canon mortal Andy, so by the time this fic takes place, Andy would have passed away. The fic itself doesn't dwell on the specifics and most of the fic deals with correspondence between Nile and Andy back in 2021 to 2025. 
> 
> That said, many thanks to alamorn for all the prompts. They were a wonderful source of inspiration, especially when I saw that you liked epistolary fic. Your prompts spoke to my soul and I hope you enjoy this piece.

2080

She's unmistakable even as she turns her head to avoid the camera directly. Even though she should be lost to the crowd around her. It's clear that she's the focus of the picture, her profile thrown into sharp relief. She stands in the middle of a crowded street, the people around her parting to give her space as she says something to them. The picture has her mid-gesture, her strong jaw set as her bangs fall onto her forehead. She's staring off into the distance as though she's occupied by something more important than the oncoming monstrous wave. Even if it's just the side of her face, there's no mistaking the slope of Andy's shoulders and the general air of eternity that she carries around her.

She's so blatantly in-focus that Nile has to fight down the urge to rip the photograph off the museum wall. Her hands twitch as she stands in front of it, her eyes drawn again and again to the plaque underneath.

> **The Hero of Scranton  
>  From the Minyard Collection  
>  c. 2025**  
>  _Pictured above is the only known photograph ever recovered of Andy Burgess who lost her lost her life trying to evacuate the citizens of Scranton during what was later dubbed The Scranton Flood. Taken using an aerial camera, famed photographer Roy Minyard was able to capture The Hero of Scranton in what was one of the last moments of her life. Despite the popular story circulating at the time, citizens of Scranton were unaware that severe thunderstorms rocking the area had severely damaged the walls of the Lake Scranton Dam. The dam, which held back two and a half billion gallons of water, failed on the morning of February 13, 2025 and led to devastating loss for the community. However, had it not been for Andy Burgess alerting Scranton authorities, and single-handedly going door-to-door to alert neighbors, the losses would have undoubtedly been worse._
> 
> _Though it is unclear how Ms. Burgess knew of the dam failure, her heroism during that moment of crisis has led to much speculation about her life, especially as her body was never recovered. While it is true that many of the people who didn't make it out of Scranton in time were never seen again, there are some who speculate that Ms. Burgess survived and chose to live out the remainder of her days away from the spotlight. Unlikely as that may be, Ms. Burgess did take on an almost folk hero-like quality. Given her lack of background and the fact that no family ever turned up, it was easy to turn Ms. Burgess into the poster child for the devastation in Scranton._
> 
> _Her likeness was used in campaigns to repair other high-hazard dams around the United States in the mid to late 2020s. Unfortunately, those particular campaigns were largely ignored. Not much changed in the aftermath of the Lake Scranton Dam failing and Ms. Burgess soon faded into the background._
> 
> _In fact, were it not for the passing of Roy Minyard and the subsequent seizure of Minyard's property by the US government, Ms. Burgess might have been lost to the pages of history. Along with a collection of never-before-seen photographs from the Scranton Lake Dam failure, historians recovered a bundle of handwritten letters addressed to Ms. Andy Burgess. These letters were written in the years leading up to the Scranton Flood, signed always, "Nile." In these letters, we see a glimpse of who Ms. Burgess was and discover that there was at least one person in the world who cared for Andy Burgess before she was the Hero of Scranton._

Nile rereads the earlier section, her eyes flashing past, "loss of life," "unacceptable," and settling finally on "reform." She wants to laugh as she reads about the outcry from citizens all over the United States, the half-assed attempts at fixing the other high-hazard dams around the country. She remembers the Colorado dam a decade later, the mad rush to avoid liability. Always the same story everywhere they turn, promises made and broken, only to be made again and broken once more, over and over.

She sighs, her eyes drawn back to Andy, that hard line of her jaw and the visible tension in her shoulders.

"It's pretty unsettling seeing one of our lives put up for show, isn't it?" Joe asks.

He comes to stand next to Nile, his shoulder brushing hers as he stares at the photograph. Nile keeps her eyes on the long line of Andy's neck, the hint of her leather jacket, impractical for the wet April weather. Nile breathes past the ache in her chest, an overwhelming urge to reach forward and follow the worry lines on Andy's forehead with her fingers. It's been so long since she's seen Andy and the photograph feels like a slap in the face, unexpected and bold.

There's Andy in plain view, hanging in a Pennsylvanian museum, her last moments immortalized forever because of a camera drone.

"It isn't right," Nile says.

She wants to rip the photograph off the wall and toss it across the linoleum floor. She wants to hear the frame bang, the shattering glass, and the rip as she tears the photograph to pieces. She never even knew they used Andy's face for their campaign after the Scranton Flood. She was in Russia at the time, trying her best to lose herself in something meaningful. She hadn't been to the house in Malta for months so she hadn't heard from Andy in a while. She never imagined that as she was running through the cold Russian terrain, Andy was dying alone in Pennsylvania of all places.

Nile reads the plaque again, her eyes falling on the word, "letters." She knows what those letters are, can remember writing them, sending them to a P.O. Box in North Carolina. She always wondered, even back then, whether Andy was throwing them away or keeping them. For years after, and especially when it became impossible that Andy could still be alive, Nile thought of those letters. She imagined Andy burning them, watching as the ash scattered in the wind.

In her thoughts, Andy destroyed the letters to keep the rest of them safe, always afraid that someone out there would find the rest of them simply because of what Nile wrote. But as she looks at Andy's photograph and that hard determination on her face, minutes before her death, Nile knows that Andy chose the people of Scranton. She chose to save as many lives as she could, for as long as she could, instead of burning the letters. The way the rest of them, at one point or another, put aside their pasts to do the same.

It's who they are. It's who Andy taught them to be.

Nile sighs, her breath getting stuck in her throat as she turns back to Andy, brave and bold and beautiful. They all thought she cut them off when her letters stopped coming, when they couldn't find any hint of her in their safe houses. Nile thought Andy died alone and happy, imagined her surrounded by family, perhaps a little girl with her brown eyes and her sharp grin. Thinking _that_ made it easier to forgive the silence because Nile would never begrudge Andy a second chance at life. But now, here she is, standing in front of Andy's photograph, her letters plastered over the museum walls, every secret shining underneath the fluorescent lights.

"It isn't fair," Nile says. "We never even got to say goodbye."

"No," Joe says, quietly. "It isn't."

2021

"I have to go," Andy says.

She sounds defeated, this weight to her words as she leans against the kitchen counter, her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. She's wearing that leather jacket that ends at her waist and is more for show than to keep her warm. She's used to the fashions, even if they're impractical now that she has to take care not to freeze to death.

Nile can tell that the aging is getting to her even if she doesn't want to admit it. Andy knows exactly how many white hairs she has and where they are. It's been almost two years since Merrick and it's getting harder to hide the fact that Andy's getting older and the rest of them aren't. To Nile, it's not the startling rediscovery it seems to be for the rest of them. She's not old enough to feel the years slipping through her fingers the way they seem to be slipping through Andy's now. To her, Andy with graying hair and new wrinkles doesn't necessarily spell out a death sentence.

But then, Nile's only been alive for thirty years. To her, the decades that Andy has left feel eternal, forever still this hazy thing in the distance. It's different for the rest of them, for Booker who's been hanging around France for the past two years. She knows he's taking the separation hard, that he won't talk to them because he can't wrap his head around not being there for Andy's last years. He's slowly losing his mind and there's nothing the rest of them can do about it.

After all, there have to be consequences, no matter how harsh Nile finds them.

She thinks that's part of the reason for why Andy's come to the conclusion that she has to go. It's easier to run now, when Booker's exile is still relatively fresh, when a hundred years still feel like seconds. Two years is enough to see the changes, but still not enough for the reality of Andy's eventual death to sink in. She can still leave them because she can still pretend that she'll see them again and nothing will have changed.

Part of Nile understands going before it's too late, before she takes roots. It's what she felt when she signed up for the marines, that certainty that if she didn't go, she never would. Something that ran deeper than the terror in her mother's eyes and led to her unshakable determination to leave.

She was never running away. Just running toward something else, something new and different, but undeniably hers.

Andy deserves that. After all her years alive, she deserves to go wherever she wants to. So if she's decided it's time to leave, there's nothing any of them can do to keep her here.

"I'll write to you," Andy says.

She's leaning properly against the counter now, her hair falling over her eyes as she looks across the kitchen at Nile. They're separated by six feet of fake wood flooring and the kitchen table with its haphazard arrangement of chairs. The distance seems infinite at the moment, a chasm of unspoken things hanging in the space between them.

"You could just call," Nile says.

Andy exhales hard through her nose and seems to shake herself out of the lethargy that's enveloped her these past few days. She continues to lean against the kitchen counter but she looks up, her eyes finding Nile's and holding her stare.

"I don't think I can do that," she says.

Nile nods and looks away, down at her shoes, the scuffed tip of her boots. She went on a hike earlier in the week and just kept wearing the same shoes, the heavy sole grounding her as she walked. Andy's wearing a leather jacket and a white t-shirt, and her shoes are low-rise and rounded at the front, black suede without a single mark on them.

"Nice shoes," Nile says.

Andy sticks her left foot out and grins. "Thanks," she says. "I bought them yesterday."

Like she bought the black duffel and the new passport with the name Annie Keeye in block letters.

Nile knows there's no winning here. Andy has bags and new clothes and IDs with a new name. She's prepared and there's nothing Nile can say that will make her stay. That was the agreement, after Merrick, when they all huddled into the first safe house they could find, doing their best to nurse their wounds. They sat in the dark for hours, just breathing in the humid England air, knowing that they were safe and trying to believe it.

"We can't do that again," Andy said. "We can't ever ask for more than any one of us is able or willing to give. We can't lose ourselves like that again."

They promised. No holding anyone back. No wanting more than the others could give.

"Send the letters to Malta," Nile says.

2080

_The 2020s are best described as a state of transition between a world that rejected and often ridiculed non-normative expressions of gender and romantic attachment and one that accepted them. Although there is extensive literature on male/male relationships over the early twenty-first century, female/female relationships have been notoriously understudied and oftentimes, ignored. One notable example is the relationship between Andy Burgess, the Hero of Scranton, and her lover, Nile. Though the letters that Nile wrote to Andy Burgess over the course of four years are explicitly between the two women, many scholars have chosen to focus on the relationship between Joe and Nicky. This shift in focus not only disregards the very real attachment between the two women, but also turns an invaluable primary source document into a secondary source at best._

Smith, A. (2079). The missing link: A study of the absence of women in early twenty-first century queer studies. _Queer Studies, 2(22)_.

-

**Letter Number One  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated January 2022**

_Dear Andy,_

_It's good to hear from you, even though it was pretty shitty of you to run out on me in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. Nicky couldn't sleep for weeks after. He says he's fine, but I can tell when he's asleep now and when he's just pretending for Joe._

_Joe's fine. He keeps stress baking and saying that he's practicing. We leave him to it. It's not like any of us have to worry about diabetes. I haven't been able to get a hold of Booker these past few months. I assumed you'd talked to him about leaving and he's doing his own thing. Part of me wants to chase him down in France, but he's a grown man and he has to know what he's doing._

_We haven't done anything differently. Went down to Brazil about a month after you left. I think it was more for Nicky and Joe. They wanted to go somewhere familiar. We did what we always do, helped out where we could, walked away when we couldn't. Copley's been keeping us busy since then. There's no time to stop and think really. No downtime if I can help it. It's good to have something to do._

_I miss my family, but you know all about that by now. Working makes it easier to cope. Especially because it's just me here now. With Joe and Nicky. Constantly._

_I love them but there's only so much of them holding hands and cuddling on the couch that I can take._

_I'm glad they have each other._

_I'm glad that you're doing your own thing._

_I miss you. But that's also nothing new._

_Nile_

2022

She doesn't know what to do with this second letter, the slant to Andy's writing, her neat cursive. She stares at it for a long moment, mesmerized by the loops and the smoothly connecting letters. They stopped formally teaching cursive in school when Nile was in first grade, so she doesn't have the same practice to her curls. It would take her twice as long as it took Andy to write a letter back in the same style, though now that she looks at Andy's response, it feels like the right thing to do.

They're wanna-be pen pals, from the handwritten notes down to the P.O. boxes. But there's something nostalgic about opening the Malta P.O. Box and seeing the white envelope with her name in the center, only her first name and the address, never any other details that may give her or Andy away. Andy opened the P.O. Box under one of her many aliases and handed Nile the keys before she left. Copley handles all the payments, so Nile follows suit, printing only "Andy" above the North Carolina P.O. Box address. That at least will make it harder for anyone to find them, if they choose to look.

Copley does his best to keep them hidden and it's only right that they help him as best they can. He can't do anything for Andy now that she doesn't want to be found, but he's keeping an eye on Booker and that's all Nile can ask for.

 _How are you?_ Andy asks in her letter.

What is Nile supposed to say?

It's been about a month since Andy left and life continues in its ever explosive cycle. She sleeps and wakes and checks in with Copley to see what he has for them. They went on two missions so far without Andy, without Booker. Just Nile and Nicky and Joe, the three of them learning how to move as a unit. They're a little rough around the edges, Nicky and Joe not used to having a third in their circle. But it makes sense to stay together when there are so few of them, best to keep each other close by so that they don't lose anyone else.

But Nile can't say that. Not in any way that could draw attention should the letters get lost. She can only pick up her pen and the spare piece of paper that she keeps near her desk in the safe house in Malta. She inhales, letting the warm breeze wash over her from the open windows of the house. Nile prefers to write in the morning because the stone house keeps everything nice and cool while the sun rises. She likes to think Andy writes in the evenings, right before bed, sitting at a desk in some part of the Midwestern United States.

She hopes it's nice. She hopes the sun warms Andy in the mornings, the way the Mediterranean sun warms the sands of Malta. She hopes Andy's happy.

2080

**Excerpt from Letter Number Six  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated June 2022**

_Dear Andy,_

_I've been thinking about the sun a lot these days._

_We were in London the other day because Copley wanted to see us in person and, I can safely say, England sucks. It's humid but not in the way that Chicago is humid. Something about the air doesn't feel right in London. It kind of sits on top of my skin and throws me off. Too many bad memories, I think. But Copley's here and he's been good about getting us what we need so, if he needs us in London, we go to London._

_Joe thought it was a bad idea for all of us to go together. I don't think he trusts Copley all the way yet and I know Nicky definitely doesn't. But I do. You did. So we went and it turned out to be about you. One of your aliases pinged in Australia, a round-trip ticket from Switzerland. I wanted you to know that Copley took care of it, even though you told him not to worry about you anymore. I wanted you to know that we got to see you. Copley kept a copy just for us and Nicky didn't let him delete it. He said Booker might want it once he comes back. I didn't think you'd mind and I've been keeping the USB safe. Don't worry. I won't let anyone find you. It wasn't even a clear video of you, just a side shot of your face, right at the bottom of the screen._

_You look good in sunglasses._

-

**Letter Number Twelve  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated December 2022**

_Andy,_

_I don't know what you mean by not letting go. I have let go. More times than I can count. I've let go of so fucking much, it's exhausting just to think of all the things I'm never going to have anymore. I wake up every night thinking about my mom and my brother, about how hard it must have been to get that visit. If they got a visit and not just a single letter mailed to my momma's house._

_Copley says he made sure my mom got the money and that everything was nice and proper. But that doesn't take away from the fact that my mother put an empty coffin into the ground and then went home. Alone. You know I can't go see her, and my brother was in college by then, so even if he came down for the funeral, he had to leave at some point._

_I've tried to imagine what it must have been like for my mom, coming home to an empty house, the lights off because who's going to use them when she isn't home. When I close my eyes, I can see my mother in her best black dress, dropping down in her favorite chair in the kitchen, looking out that smudged window. We used to live across from a cemetery and when the light is right, you can see all the way past the brick wall, all the way to this little marble statue of an angel. There's this tree next to that statue, this large maple with thick branches that always drops its leaves right on that angel's head._

_I imagine my mom looking at that tree, watching those leaves fall, and thinking. I can see her just sitting in that kitchen with the lights off, waiting for it to get dark, just her alone, sitting. Waiting._

_She used to do that when we first heard about my father. Killed in action, they told us, handed my mother a flag and a check and told us to be on our way. She wouldn't move in the beginning, just sat there in her kitchen chair watching the sun and the little angel statue. She never got the chance to properly mourn him. We didn't let her. She had to get up eventually. Move on with her life because she had kids that needed to be fed._

_She has all the time in the world now._

_That's what I think about every night. About how she can just sit in that kitchen watching that statue forever. There's no one to bring her coffee or make her tea. No one to tell her she should shower. Not even my brother running around making noise._

_She might sit there forever and I wouldn't know until it was too late._

_And you want to talk about me not letting go?_

_I'm here. Writing you letters and watching Joe cook while Nicky takes a nap. I'm in this rundown house in the middle of nowhere while my mom sits alone in her kitchen. I'm here._

_So don't talk to me about letting go._

-

**Letter Number Seventeen  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated May 2023**

_Dear Andy,_

_Nicky and Joe are getting on my last nerve. In a good way. Always in a good way._

_They're celebrating some anniversary but they also refuse to leave me alone. I think they're worried I won't know what to do with them gone. Or worried that I'll end up losing it and going home to check on my mother. Copley told me she's sick. He says my brother's with her since classes are over for the semester. But I've been a mess these past few days._

_It's a lot harder to keep away from the people you care about than Booker made it seem. I know it's for their own safety, that the job we do requires sacrifice. But it's different when your family is alive and you know they're breathing the same air as you, looking up at the same sky. If I wanted to, I could hop on a plane and go back to Chicago. But I won't. Because Booker's right. Some things you just have to leave alone. Not for me but for them._

_Speaking of Booker, I've been to see him. I left him a phone so that we can talk because_ he _understands the importance of technology and being able to send a quick text message once in a while. I know you won't believe me if I tell you he's doing well, so I'm not even going to pretend to lie to you. He's drinking a lot but he stopped the week I was with him. Stone cold sober like it was nothing. I wish I could have stayed longer but Copley called and I had to go back. He's been texting every once in a while just to let me know he's still alive. He asked about you the other day. I told him you were good. Your letters make it sound like you're doing well. Hanging around the beaches and hiking._

_I told him about the Caribbean cruise you went on a couple of months ago, and the showgirl who stayed with you. He thought it was hilarious. I thought it was nice, someone to keep you company while you're out there rediscovering yourself. Booker thinks you're out to bed anything that doesn't run away from you first. He says good for you and to pour one out for him next time you find a good bar. He wanted to know what the showgirl was like, but you never told me._

_Was she pretty?_

_I can't picture your type. But I know Booker's type down to all the little details, after that week with him. Joe and Nicky are boring. The good kind of boring, like my mom and dad. The kind of boring that means they know the other like the back of their hands. If I were to ask for their type, they'd probably give me personality traits, that's how disgustingly in love they are. On days when I'm not surrounded by their anniversary preparations, it's kind of sweet. Today, I just want to get out of the house, find a lesbian bar and a pretty girl to keep me company._

_I might. Depending on how the next hour goes._

_Anyway, I'm sorry for getting so off-topic, but consider this payback for the three pages on coniferous trees you sent me that one time._

_Take care. We're all thinking of you._

_Nile_

-

**Letter Number Eighteen  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated June 2023**

_Dear Andy,_

_Snowboarding in Canada, huh? I don't know if I believe you since it's hot as hell where we're at. It's impossible to imagine I'll ever see the snow again, but it's good to know you're freezing somewhere in Canada._

_I told Booker all about your showgirl and her long brown hair and her pretty legs. He thinks you're exaggerating the details. He swears no one is that good looking on a cruise ship. But what does he know? He hasn't been on the water in something like a hundred years._

_He's doing better. He says it helps that he has someone to text, even though he knows he's technically breaking all the rules. I am too and I know Joe knows. It's not like there's anyone else I'd be talking to. Joe doesn't mind though. I know he's angry at Booker but he's the kind of angry that forgives easily. Which is why I know we can't bend the rules. You were right. All of you. About needing to have consequences._

_Which reminds me._

_I did go to that bar. This little hole in the wall with dimmed lighting and the good kind of music. The kind of music that gets in your blood and beats with your heart. You would have liked it there. It seemed your kind of place, lots of leather, lots of short haircuts and intense staring. Or maybe you wouldn't have liked it. Maybe the women were too much like you, all of them kind of self-assured and confident._

_I liked it there._

_I liked it enough to go talk to someone. She was taller than me by like an inch, this beautiful Black girl with the most amazing mouth. I think I fell in love. She likes art and going to museums and she's thinking of going into theater. She already did a show on Broadway as an understudy so she's on her way there. She says I should go to Broadway sometimes and I thought about you. You should go to Broadway, get lost in New York City for a few days, figure out what you like._

_I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art once with my dad. I was like ten years old. It was the middle of winter and my dad was off for the holidays. I remember there were so many people wearing these huge jackets, scarves all over the place, everyone just rushing by in this mad dash, like they had places to be and no time to get there. It was a lot like Chicago, but New York City has a different energy. It's like everything's at one hundred and twenty ALL THE TIME._

_You'd like New York City. It's impossible for anyone to recognize you there._

_And before you ask, no, I'm not seeing the lady from the bar again. You know we don't do that. You know I don't do that. I can't._

_Anyway, tell me more about almost breaking your leg snowboarding. You were very vague about how exactly you messed up your ankle. How high up the mountain were you? Were you on the easy slopes? You have to answer truthfully. Nicky has a lot of money riding on the exact answers to these questions and you wouldn't want Nicky to lose another bet. He already owes Joe something like three back rubs and upwards of a thousand dollars._

_Take care._

_Nile_

-

**Excerpt from Letter Number Twenty  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated December 2023**

_I think about forever. I can't help it. Sometimes, I'll be in the middle of texting Booker a funny meme, and something about the image will remind me that the world will keep going far after the last of us is gone. And I start thinking of all these ifs and maybes and it's impossible to grasp the concept of forever. I'm thirty-one now. I can barely imagine what I'll be like ten years from now. Anything past next week seems crazy. But it shouldn't._

_We all know what we'll be doing a week from now. Two years from now. Fifty years from now. There's no changing who we are. No changing the commitment we made._

_I know it's probably shitty of me to talk about this to you, especially since you're in the middle of nowhere, and I'm here, in a warm house, surrounded by the sound of Joe's laughter and listening to Nicky's stories. I didn't know he remembered so much in such clear detail. You and I talked a little bit about it back before everything went down in London. You said that time steals things away and leaves other things behind. And that, sometimes, the worst thing we can do is remember._

_I think I understand it now._

_You're one of my clearest memories. Not my mom or my brother or even my dad. It's you, leaning against the kitchen counter, refusing to look at me as though I'd ever tell you no. I can picture you everywhere in this house we're in right now. In the one in Malta. I see you in France, looking up at the sky and waiting for me to calm down. You're so easy to picture, so ingrained in every corner of my mind, and I don't even remember consciously trying to keep your memory alive._

_I try so hard every night to remember the sound of my mother's voice, what she sounded like when she sang on the weekends. I try to hear my brother telling me that I can go, that he's going to study up and become a doctor and take care of our mom. Every single night, I lie there in bed, just wanting to hear the sound of their voices again. Every night, I regret deleting those voicemails because all I have are pictures now._

_And you._

-

**Excerpt from Letter Number Twenty-three  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated March 2024**

_I think about you now. At night, when I close my eyes and the sounds from the street aren't enough to drown out the sound of your voice. I don't think it's exactly your voice I'm hearing anymore, but it's been so long since I last heard you speak that I can pretend it's you. You always sound amused in my head, and I can almost see that smirk on your face, the way you shake your head when something is funny but you don't want anyone to know. Like one of the last times we were all together and Joe talked about romance, and Nicky agreed with him, and Booker joked about wanting to jump out a window._

_~~It's not~~  
~~I'm not saying~~  
~~I don't want you to think that~~ _

_I don't mean anything by it._

_I just wanted you to know that I think of you, that I can still see your face and hear your voice, even if we haven't spoken in almost two years. That my memory is good. And that we still have that single shitty shot of you from the Switzerland airport._

_I won't forget you._

-

Nile inhales, her breath catching at her throat as she rereads Letter Twenty-three, the sheets spread out next to each other beneath the glass panel. She can see the two creases from where she folded the sheets to make them fit into the envelope, each of the marks still visible despite the heavy glass. She remembers writing this letter, the way her hand moved across the page, how fast she got through the first sheet, how she had to stop before starting the second.

She'd been dreaming of Andy consistently by then, hearing her voice and seeing her, almost like the first time, when she was in Afghanistan and she woke to her new life. She still has those same dreams every once in a while now. She's had them almost since the Scranton Flood, though she didn't know it at the time. Almost like she knew what happened and something was trying to tell her that Andy was gone.

She sighs, the sound echoing in the empty hall. Joe left a while ago, saying that he was going to find a place for them to stay, that he was taking Booker and Nicky with him. She knows he's giving her space, allowing her the privacy that's been denied to her by whoever put these letters on display. She's flayed open, every bleeding bit of her just out for everyone to see.

No one knows what the letters were really about. No one except her and Andy.

But Andy's gone now, so it's just Nile, alone in a cold museum, looking at her own rounded A's. She knows what comes next: Andy telling her that maybe they should take a break, that perhaps Nile should find some other pretty girl to hang out with. She remembers the embarrassment, the sting from the rejection, the way she stopped opening Andy's letters, stopped writing back for a few months.

 _I'm sorry,_ Andy wrote, when Nile finally gathered up the courage to open another letter. _I miss you._

-

**Letter Thirty-One  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated September 2024**

_Dear Andy,_

_I don't know how. I just know that stranger things have happened to me. To us._

_I don't know how we'd do this, or what it would mean. And I'm not asking you to come back and give up on what you're doing. You know I'd never do that. I don't want this to change anything for you. It can't. But maybe this can be something else you do. Something we do together._

_Would it matter what we called each other? Would it matter if all we could do was write each other letters?_

_You're not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea. I know this is a terrible idea. You're probably thousands of miles away and I have no way to call you. No way to see you. But I can read your letters and I can write you letters, and maybe we can keep each other company this way._

_Would it be so bad?_

_You're one of only four people in the entire world who can understand me._

_And I'm here._

_Right here._

_Whenever you're ready. Even if you never are. I'm still here._

_Love,  
Nile_

-

**Excerpt from Letter Forty-One  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated December 2024**

_There are Christmas decorations everywhere, lights, candy canes, men dressed like Santa. And everything tastes like peppermint mocha._

_I wish you were here._

_At least if you were here, I could tell you what I dreamed about last night in person, how I can still feel your hair beneath my fingers and your mouth on my neck. I know you said we'd see each other soon, but a part of me is always waiting for the day you stop answering these letters._

_I know you, and isn't that an interesting thing._

_I know that you'll run as soon as things get too serious, that the only reason you're doing this with me is because we're miles away from each other and that makes it safe._

_It's all right. All good love stories have to start somewhere._

-

When Nile finally leaves the Pennsylvanian Museum of History, it's dark outside, the sun setting earlier the further into winter they get. She tucks her hands into the pocket of her coat and heads out into the chilly night. It's clear enough that she can just make out the stars like tiny shining stitches against black cloth. All around her, the silence seems to stretch, ensconcing her. She breathes, feeling the cold air hitting the back of her throat.

The hotel is about eight blocks to her left, and though there's nothing else for Nile to do tonight, she's not ready to go.

She can feel the weight of her words hanging in the center of her chest, this ache that runs deeper than anything else ever has. She's been to her mother's grave, tended to the flowers her brother planted, and watched them grow and die and grow again. She carries that grave in her heart, its neat golden letters atop a brass slab, its dates, and her mother's name.

What she wouldn't do to have been able to see her mother again before her brother buried her. But the past is the past, and memories are all they get to keep at the end of the day.

This weight in her chest now feels like that, as though she's mourning, a sadness that runs so deep it's as though it's always been a part of her. She's always been waiting to feel it, to succumb to the night and the sorrow. She still has the letters, Andy's words, the curves of her messy script, the sentiment in between the lines. She could pull them out, the way she does every few years, the way she pulls out her mother's photos. To mourn.

To remember.

-

**Letter Number Forty-Nine  
Never received.  
Dated February 2025**

_Dear Andy,_

_Sorry that it's taken me so long to get back to you. Copley had us fly out to Germany right before Christmas and it turned out to be shit show. I'm talking a London type shit show, with the same brand of entitled rich dicks. But the three of us work well together now. We're, as the kids say, a well-oiled machine. We don't even have to say anything. I can tell what Joe's thinking by the way he looks at me, and Nicky has so many different little smirks, it's almost a whole other language._

_We're good. No one was hurt worse than we were in London. And we took care of a big case. Copley swears we're on break until at least the summer, but I saw his board when we went by his house after we got back. There's something like ten open cases on his board alone, and that's not counting all the cases on his desk. I'm sure we're going to be somewhere else in a week or two. But for now, we're all home. The first home._

_I called Booker the other day to let him know we were back and he asked me to go see him. Nicky already knew where I was going when I started packing my bags. But I think Joe was just glad to spend some time alone with Nicky. It was that kind of mission._

_I'll be writing to you from Booker's soon and I know you said you needed more time, but maybe think about going to see him if you're not ready to see me. He needs the company. AndI promise I won't go looking for you even when he rats you out. Because you should know he'll text me as soon as you get into his apartment. We're close like that._

_It's good to be back and to come home to your letters._

_I miss you._

_Love,  
Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty  
Never received.  
Dated March 2025**

_Hey,_

_I know we've gone longer than this without talking, but I had the strangest dream last night. You were running and there was water everywhere, but you weren't near an ocean. I couldn't tell where you were but you looked like you were looking for something._

_I know it's just a dream and I'm on my way out for a week. Copley called. But send me a letter when you can. Even if it's just a, "Hey Nile, I'm alive."_

_Talk to you soon._

_Love,  
Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty-one  
Never received.  
Dated April 2025**

_~~Hey Andy,~~  
~~Dear Andy,~~  
~~Hey Andy,~~  
Dear Andy,_

_It's been a while. I know this still isn't the longest we've gone without exchanging letters, but we'd been writing pretty consistently these past few months and I haven't heard from you. I know you're probably out in the middle of nowhere with no phone and no way to get back to me, but hit me up when you can. I just want to make sure you're all right._

_Anyway, just to fill you in, Nicky and Joe got married. Again. We'd just gotten back from Nicaragua, hadn't even put all of our things away when Nicky said, "Joe, I think we should get married." Joe didn't even say yes, just grabbed his wallet and left. He came back with rings and a form and then he and Nicky went down to the courthouse to fill out the paperwork for the marriage license._

_They invited Booker to the wedding and he came down from France. He wore a suit and everything, even though all we did was go to the courthouse and sign as witnesses. I wore this yellow dress, prettiest thing I'd put on in a while. I saw it when I went with Booker to pick up his suit, and because he was busy, I tried it on. It's soft, all of this fabric that hangs down into a flowing skirt. I like the way I look in it._

_Except, I was in a dress and Booker in a suit waiting in line for Joe and Nicky to get married. Three different people congratulated us and five said we made a cute couple. It was an experience. I don't think I've ever seen Booker look so uncomfortable. Joe thought it was hilarious, and you know how it is with Joe, you just want to give him what he wants all the damn time._

_I didn't let go of Booker the entire time we were in there, and we either have three kids or are expecting. I forget which one we settled on in the end._

_So, Joe and Nicky are married again and Joe's got a new ring on his finger. Nicky showed me the box where he keeps his and he's wearing the newest one on a necklace. I think it's sweet that they wanted to get married again. Even if we had to do it without you. Having Booker hang out for a few days was good too. It felt right. Means it's going to feel right when he finally comes back._

_Joe says to let you know that if you want to see him marry Nicky, he'll do it again in a heartbeat. He has five different aliases he can use, and they still haven't been married in New York. I don't think he's serious about the aliases, but he'll definitely marry Nicky again if you want to come to the wedding._

_Hope you're doing well._

_Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty-two  
Never received.  
Dated May 2025**

_We're pinned down. Can't exactly tell you where or how. Will explain later when I can. Just wanted to send a quick message to see how you're doing. Would appreciate a postcard. All I want to know is that you're okay._

-

**Letter Number Fifty-three  
Never received.  
Dated June 2025**

_Don't know when I'll be back to pick up your letters. Please don't worry. I'm okay, just keeping busy. Copley has us working something big. Will write to you as soon as I can._

_Love you._

_Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty-four  
Never received.  
Dated July 2025**

_If I've done something wrong, you have to tell me what it is. I can't just guess. That's not how this works, Andy._

-

**Letter Number Fifty-five  
Never received.  
Dated August 2025**

_Dear Andy,_

_I've thought about this thing between us for months now, wondering whether I pushed too hard or not hard enough. I've thought about all the things you've told me. About Quynh. About Lykon. About all the other people who mattered enough for you to remember them even after all this time. I don't think you can see how much you still care for them, what it means that you could tell me all these things about them._

_You love them. Still. That's beautiful and special and important. Love is what makes us human, what keeps us in the fight._

_I don't want to be angry or hurt. I want to think that you're above leaving me hanging just because of something I said. But I don't know what it means that you're not writing back even when I've asked you to. I'm not saying you need to keep writing. If we're done, we're done. I'm grown enough to understand that. But I want to know that you're okay. So that I have something to say to Joe next time he asks. So that I can tell Booker you wanted us to let you go._

_You can't just leave me with nothing. Not when they're looking to me for answers. You planned this. You wanted this. So now you gotta help me out. Make it a clean break._

_I don't want this to be the last memory I have of you._

_Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty-seven  
Never received.  
Dated October 2025**

_I asked Copley to look you up. I know it's not what you wanted, but it's been a while and you haven't answered any of my letters, even when I asked you to. It's not like you to leave me hanging when I really need you, and I know that you're not just going to disappear on us without letting someone know. Even when you left the first time, you sent me a letter explaining why you couldn't say goodbye. So I know you're not just going to leave me here worried._

_I just wanted to let you know that if you've been avoiding me, now's a good time to say so. Otherwise, we're going to start looking for you. Joe and Nicky agree with me. And you know Booker is always a sure yes when it comes to you._

_I'm not going to let you leave us like this. We deserve better than that._

_I deserve better than that._

-

**Letter Number Fifty-eight  
Never received.  
Dated November 2025**

_Dear Andy,_

_~~This is the last letter I'm going to write to you for a while.~~  
~~I want this letter~~  
~~I don't want to end on~~ _

_I don't know when I'll be able to write to you next. You've done a pretty good job at disappearing, and I know you're not going to be using any of the aliases Copley has on file. You probably don't even have a phone anymore._

_Or maybe you do._

_I keep thinking about what we're going to find if we start looking for you. If you're in trouble, or if you want us to find you, we will. But there's always the possibility that you don't want us to know where you are. That you just decided to go and disappear into a new life. If that's true, I'm going to be very pissed. Not because of what you chose, but because of the way you did it._

_You weren't supposed to go without saying goodbye. So I have to believe that you're out there waiting for us to find you. Waiting for me to find you._

_I will._

_We have Copley and all the time in the world. If you need us, we'll be there soon. Don't worry._

_Love,  
Nile_

-

**Letter Number Fifty-Nine  
Never sent.  
Dated October 2030**

_Dear Andy,_

_~~It's been five years since your last letter.~~  
~~We've been looking for you.~~  
~~I don't know what to say.~~ _

_We went looking for Booker. This time I know it was because we couldn't stand losing him so soon after we lost you. He was exactly where I left him, holed up in France in his shitty apartment, trying to drink himself to death. I don't think he did anything else the entire time he was on his own. But he's okay now. He wants to find you. Sometimes I think that's the only thing that keeps him going. And that's okay for now. I know it helps having something to do._

_I know you're never going to read this letter, but I was in the house in Malta the other day and I saw the stack of lined paper I used to write you all those other letters. And it seemed funny that after all this time, the paper's still there. It seemed such a shame to let it all go to waste, so I took a sheet and sat down and started to write you a letter. I have a pile of crumpled paper next to me, all of these things that I want to say and can't. I think I started at least ten different times, and each time I found something new to write, I broke off into some weird tangent about the sky and the color of Joe's hair._

_I know now why I did it, why I wasted the day looking out the window and watching the sun set. I made tea three times and then made coffee, and I didn't drink a single cup. Just let it get cold next to me on the desk. The thing is, some days I wake up and know in the depths of my soul that you're gone, vanished, dead. I lit a candle for you in a church in Budapest and didn't tell anyone it was for you. I prayed for your salvation, sat in that church and looked at that altar and hoped you'd gone someplace good. I think I'm mourning you. Even though we don't know that you're actually gone._

_Joe thinks you need time, and everyone says that you've done this before, just disappeared for years without a word. But I don't think that's what's happening here. Because you said you'd write, and you've always answered all of my letters. I'm afraid something happened to you. But more than that, if I'm being honest, I guess what scares me the most is that you've just chosen to walk away without a word. That you saw all those letters I wrote to you and just didn't care._

_They were pretty heartfelt letters, Andy, lots of that emotional bullshit. A lot of them probably make no sense. But I meant every word in them. Everything. Especially the part where I told you ~~that you meant~~ ~~you mean~~ that writing to you was healing. Not like talking to a therapist. I do that already, and I never saw you as someone who could fix me, or as someone who I could fix. I just. It's easier to be honest with you when I'm writing you letters. So it's easier to tell you that I think of you constantly._

_I don't know if you don't want us to find you, or if we just don't know you as well as we thought we did. It feels like we've looked everywhere but I know we're not doing enough. We can only look for you when we aren't trying to save everyone else, when Copley doesn't have a new mission, and when we don't need to take some time off just to recharge. It's exhausting thinking you're out there and we can't get to you, that you could either be hurt, or living this beautiful life while I sit here and wonder if you're dead._

_I'm not mad at you. Not really. I hope that you're happy, that you found someone nice who loves you and makes you smile. I'm only sad that it wasn't me. I'm only sorry that I couldn't keep the promise I made to you at Merrick's. You could have stayed with us. We would have taken care of you in any way you needed. Nothing more. Nothing less._

_I want you to know that I get it now._

_All this silence._

_I know you're asking us to leave you alone. So I'm going to leave you alone. No more hunting you down in between missions. No more staying up with Booker and going through your things. We're done. All of us. We're going to let you go._

_But before I do, I wanted to let you know that I love you._

_Still._

_Always._

_And I meant what I said, when you told me that your biggest fear was that you hated the world so much, it would forget you when you were gone._

_I won't forget you. Not a single second of who you were and what you sounded like. Not even when all I have left are the memories of your letters and that one shitty shot of you in the Switzerland airport. I won't forget you._

_I promise._

_Love,  
Nile_

-

_Perhaps most tragic of all is the absence of Andy Burgess outside of Scranton history. We know that she was brave and determined based on her actions during the Scranton Flood. We know that she loved and was loved in return, that her final thoughts on the day of her death were about Nile. But who she was outside of that has been lost to the pages of history. Though many people have shown up over the years claiming to be her family, there has been no actual proven familial link to this day. In many ways, Andy Burgess exists because of Nile's letters, her words doing more to immortalize the Hero of Scranton's human existence than any biographical text to date...And perhaps, at the end of the day, this was the greatest demonstration of Nile's love for Andy Burgess: to keep her alive long after she was gone._

Smith, A. (2079). The missing link: A study of the absence of women in early twenty-first century queer studies. _Queer Studies, 2(22)_.

-

**To Nile, With Love  
From the Minyard Collection  
Dated February 12, 2025**

_Nile,_

_I've been thinking about you. All these little things that I learned about you from the short time we were together. I wonder all the damn time if you still roll your eyes this one specific way when you're annoyed, and if you still smile like you mean every fucking bit of it._

_I want to see you. You specifically. Not Nicky or Joe or Booker. Not yet. I can always see them later. What I want is to see_ you _and I'm afraid I'm not going to get the chance to. I've wasted so much of my fucking life just wanting it to be over, and then you came along. You with your sweet smile and the easy way you have of forgiving. You walked into my life like you had a right to be there, like you were invincible, ready to take on the whole fucking world for the things you felt mattered._

_And there I was, just watching you, trying to understand how we could be looking at the same world and coming to completely different conclusions. But I know now. I know what you saw and I know why it took me so long to see it too._

_I've been running ever since I was born, trying to keep myself safe while I figured out what to do with my life. I found out a long time ago that there was no clear answer to my questions, that there was no absolute, no reason. I made it up on my own. All of it. All that bullshit about protecting people and keeping them safe, about fixing what we could. All of that was just shit I told myself so that I could keep going, so that I didn't just shoot myself in the head and finish it. But I ended up believing it. That's what happens when you pretend for long enough. You start to believe that your lies are true._

_That's what happened to me. I pretended to be a person until I became one. And the thing is, people want things, people crave things. People are selfish and cruel and self-serving. And I am too._

_I want to see you._

_Tell me when. Tell me where._

_We can figure out the rest later._

_With love,  
Andy_

-

Everyone's in bed when Nile gets back to the hotel room. The hallway light blinks to life as she closes the door behind her, and though she's always quiet, when she turns back to the room, Joe, Nicky, and Booker are watching her with careful expressions.

"Everything all right, boss?" Booker asks.

Nile takes off her coat, her eyes sweeping over the hotel room as she catalogues all her escape routes. When she's done, she turns back to them, to Joe already half-asleep as he rests his head against Nicky's back. The two of them always take the bed closest to the door when they can manage a hotel, always making sure that Nile's not alone, even if it means the four of them have to share one room.

She's never been able to sleep by herself, doesn't want to find out if she can, and tonight, especially, she's glad for their company.

"I'm good," she says, motioning for Booker to lie back down.

He does so without a second's hesitation, burrowing under the comforter but leaving enough space by his side for Nile.

"Wake me if you need me," Nicky says.

Nile nods, but they both know she's not going to wake him. If she needs anything, she'll wake Booker and drink with him by the window under the moonlight. It's one of those days, one for melancholy and burning liquor. But only if she needs it. Only if the sound of their breathing doesn't lull her to sleep. Only if the memories hurt too much.

"Go to sleep," she says. "I'll be all right."

"Sure thing," Booker calls, his voice muffled under the covers.

But he's looking at her when she turns, this soft expression on his face, as though he can feel the ache in her heart and the tears that prickle at the corner of her eyes.

"It was a lot," she says. "I knew it would be. I just need some time."

He nods, finally settling. Nicky gives her a long hard stare until Nile smiles, a small pathetic thing that pulls at the corner of her mouth. But it's enough, because Nicky lies back down, Joe already asleep behind him. She watches the three of them for a moment, breathing to the rise and fall of their chests. She's safe, surrounded by people who love her. Here, she can be herself, unabashed, unafraid. Here, they understand her.

She sighs, pushing the air out until her lungs hurt. Then, she turns toward the little desk at the far corner of the room, sits down, picks up the pen, and begins to write.


End file.
